Rs 100,000 cr investments in ports, shipping by 2025: Balu

Kochi, Dec 22 (UNI) India will mobilise investments to the tune of Rs 1,00,000 crore by 2025 in the ports and shipping sector through public-private partnership, Union Shipping Minister T R Balu said today.

Addressing a press conference here after presiding over the eighth meeting of the Maritime States Development Council (MSDC), Mr Balu said investments worth Rs 60,000 crore would be mobilised by 2011-12 to meet the target of creating 1.5 billion tonnes annual capacity in major and non-major ports by the end of the 11th Plan period.

Emphasising the role of public-private partnership to meet these goals, he said while the government could invest upto 40 per cent, the balance 60 per cent would be mobilised from the private sector.

The Centre had already formulated 276 projects in the port sector and 11 in the shipping sector.

Among the major projects for which the government had started the preliminary spadework was a deep-sea port off West Bengal and a transshipment port at Great Nicobar Island. While an Expression of Interest (EoI) had been invited to conduct a feasibility study for the West Bengal project, the government was going to initiate a similar study for the Great Nicobar Island also.

The required investment for the deep-sea port off West Bengal could be about Rs 7,000 crore, he said.

Earlier, while inaugurating the eighth ministerial-level meeting of the MSDC, attended by the ministers of six maritime states and the chief minister of Goa, besides the chairmen of all major ports and other senior officials, Mr Balu said maritime states and UTs had drawn up ambitious plans to expand the port capacities substantially.

By 2011-12, more than 400 million tonnes per annum capacity was likely to be added by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, Goa, Kerala and Puducherry.

He said that a Maritime University, with the main objective of fostering excellence in various fields connected with maritime studies, is proposed to be set up at Chennai with campuses in Kolkata, Mumbai and Visakhapatanam. The Union Cabinet had approved the proposal recently and the bill in this regard will be introduced in the forthcoming Budget session of Parliament.

The government had also decided to declare two more stretches along the rivers as National Waterways and the bills for enacting the necessary legilsation had been introduced in the Lok Sabha.

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